


Phlebostasis

by skivvery



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Medical Examination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6163525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skivvery/pseuds/skivvery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And there she was, just a patient, a little lab rat – not a woman nearing bliss, but an invalid, sick and powerless, her afflictions all on display under cold hard light for Delphine to see, register, analyze, report on."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phlebostasis

**Author's Note:**

> Here's some fooling around with a slightly different narrative voice from the previous posted works I have here. I think it's less "pretentious" than the others and possibly the happiest(-ish?) out of them. It was written while shirking numerous academic responsibilities, so it's hopefully worth it, ha.

Not a drop of blood was drawn purposelessly; Delphine – _Doctor Cormier_ , lest she forget – knew precisely what she was doing. Cosima might have furrowed her brow and clenched her teeth the moment the needle perforated her skin, but she had to admit the entrance was as clean and painless as it could possibly be, the syringe positioned at the perfect angle, no little accidents, no scratches, no abused veins. Best of all was the tranquil focus in Delphine's features, painting less a doctor handling her patient than an angel blessing a believer.

Steady as she could be upon the bed, Cosima watched in silence as her blood filled the tube, breathing deep and heavy, which didn't go unnoticed.

“Are you okay?” Delphine asked, though knowing all the answers. “Does this hurt?”

“No, no, you're great at it! I just never really liked needles,” Cosima said through a charming crooked smile. She looked Delphine over, memorizing her effortlessly rich blond curls, the dark freckles sprinkled all over her skin and the curve of her breasts held by a simple black bra before adding, “Though you're making me seriously reconsider that.”

Delphine laughed and Cosima joined in, as the former traded a full vial for an empty one for the sake of garnering enough testing material.

“Hopefully we can figure out what's happening to you soon and you won't have to get used to this,” Delphine said with a warm smile. “As for the rest... Well, you don't need to subject yourself to check-ups to have _that_.”

All done, Delphine removed the syringe and the tourniquet from Cosima's arm, placing a piece of gauze on the entrance spot and letting Cosima press down on it on her own for some minutes before applying a small bandage to it. She wrapped up the process, disposed of her rubber gloves and proceeded to secure the samples and catalogue them under Cosima's watchful eyes, who rested a hand on top of Delphine's knee. She felt her hot skin beneath her palm as she looked on in silence, leaning into Delphine as she wrote in crisp strokes “324b21” along with other tidbits of information on the label of each tube.

 

-

 

Cosima shrugged off the coat she wore and wriggled uncomfortably out from her blouse, sitting down with hunched, now bare shoulders.

Delphine gave her a kiss on the forehead and searched for her absconding gaze.

“There's nothing to be ashamed of,” she promised under her breath, running a thumb over Cosima's cheek.

“You gotta admit it's a bit weird.”

“Why? Because we made love last night?” Delphine's voice was liquid silk.

Cosima blinked, opened her mouth, closed it, bit her lip, fidgeted a little and waved her hands around for a second. _Well_.

“It's no problem, you know, we can have someone else conduct your exams. You can choose, I won't be hurt if you do.”

“What? No, no, I don't want anyone else to do it.”

“Then...?”

Cosima looked up into Delphine's eyes. They were caring as ever, deep and endless and mighty – but last time those same eyes got hold of her undressed (just last night), it had been in the midst of passion, among the whispers and caresses of darkness, where exposed skin is drinkable lava upon the tongue of the thirstiest of lovers, not frail parchment whose spots, folds and scars unveil themselves as dry data to a trained clinical eye. It was the contrast that baffled her most – and yet what did she expect?

A disjointed motion with her shoulders was all she gave Delphine as an answer.

“Cosima, I'm serious. If you're not okay with this –”

“I'll be fine.”

Delphine studied her, adjusting the stethoscope around her own neck, tugging on the tubing. Upon reaching a conclusion, she raised her eyebrows playfully.

“Would you feel better if... I took my shirt off too?”

Cosima couldn't contain a naughty grin.

“Well... I wouldn't complain.”

They chuckled together.

“You really are a brat.”

“Hey, you offered!”

There was an obvious smile contained within Delphine's sigh as she began to undo her shirt from the top-down and Cosima fumbled about with the buttons on the bottom to help. They were done in a few seconds, equal, if not for Delphine's standing up to Cosima's sitting down.

“There, you have what you want. Is that better?”

Cosima gave her an exaggerated positive gesture and a funny scrunched up face in response, especially since her eye view was at a level with her girlfriend's chest.

“Good, I'm glad. Now sit straight. You won't run away from your auscultation.”

“Bummer,” Cosima said, fixing her posture.

The stethoscope's chestpiece was freezing as it touched her skin, but she barely noticed it, being otherwise engaged in attempting to fabricate all sorts of unusual growls, snarls and alike sounds just to annoy Delphine during the examination.

 

-

 

She ignored Scott and crossed the lab carrying the small container, walking directly to where Delphine was sitting. It was the fourth time just this month.

“Your gift has arrived,” Cosima announced, making sure Delphine took the cup in her own hands.

“ _My_ gift?” She replied, undisturbed by the warm temperature seeping from the yellow liquid within past the plastic and into her grip. “This isn't supposed to be punishment, Cosima.”

“ _Well_ ,” Cosima said with an open mouth, displaying her sharp white teeth and doing a flourish with her hands in the air.

Delphine glanced at Scott before lowering her voice, even though he was squinting hard at a computer screen and quite clearly attempting to have no part in whatever was happening between the two women.

“We've talked about this. This is the only chance you have that we know of and we need to be sure that you're ready to initiate the treatment.”

Cosima rested one hand on her hip and threw her weight upon the other, holding herself up on Delphine's work station, looming over her.

“I'm ready, Delphine, just not to tell Sarah that this isn't going to end so quickly and that I'm gonna need her kid to keep giving out parts of herself for my sake.”

Delphine set the cup aside with a sigh and raised herself from her chair, towering over Cosima as she always did, though her countenance expressed no malignancy.

“You won't have to say that to Sarah.”

“Just like I didn't need to get used to being pricked by needles all the time? Sure.”

“We're still working towards that and you know it, Cosima.”

“Well, I'm tired of –” but Cosima was cut short by a severe coughing fit which had her nearly falling over the desk and taking everything along with her.

Though she was somehow able to remain on her feet, each cough seemed to come to surface summoned from the deepest, darkest recesses of her being, cavernous and heavy and humid. Even Scott was forced to stop pretending he wasn't there to get up and near both women in earnest concern. Delphine held Cosima at a distance long enough for her to have space to move frantically in but close enough to comfort her with a squeeze or a hug or a kiss as soon as she was done choking.

“I'm – I'm fine,” Cosima wrenched the words out of her sore throat, gasping for air. She ran a hand over her mouth to wipe droplets of saliva and afterwards traced her neck with her fingers, a light gurgling sound accompanying her erratic breathing.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Came Scott's voice from nearby. She couldn't tell with certainty where from (in all fairness, after this fit she could barely see Delphine right in front of her, let alone make Scott out through the involuntary tears that flooded her view).

Both women turned towards the source of the voice and something in Delphine's silent glare and Cosima's reddened eyes prompted Scott to excuse himself for the toilet or something of the sort, making a quick, awkward exit and leaving the two of them alone.

“You can't go on like this.”

“Look on the bright side, there was no blood this time.”

Delphine ran a distraught hand through her curls, then captured Cosima's hands in her own, holding them kindly as one would with a frail baby bird, but tightly enough to guarantee its security against the maladies of the world. As one would a baby bird, her touch transpired the greatest love, but also the strongest fear for the life it contained.

“I'm going to send this urine sample for testing right now and if good results come back, that will be the green light for the procedure. We'll do it today, we have to.” Her hands travelled up to cradle Cosima's face, her flesh shaking with overflowing tenderness. “We have to hurry. Don't you see that, Cosima?”

Cosima melted into her touch, letting herself be held, falling into Delphine's body and nestling herself there, snaking both arms around the Frenchwoman's torso, resting her head on the crook of her neck.

“I know. I know, I know. I'm sorry.”

What was an uneasy, shaky touch caught flame; Delphine's passionate embrace engulfed her.

“It's alright,” she said, planting kisses on the top of Cosima's head. “We'll get through this. We'll get you better.”

“... I'm scared, Delphine.”

“I know.”

Close as they were, bodies all but fused, Delphine could feel the movements of Cosima's chest – even now, her breathing pattern was irregular, her lung capacity obviously impaired, her breaths short and light. The voice she felt reverberating through Cosima's ribs came out muffled, seasoned with unshed tears and drops of blood stuck somewhere along her pharynx (there was an iron-like scent on her breath to denounce it). She didn't need to see Cosima's face, still buried into her, to know.

“I don't want to die.”

“You won't –”

“I love you.”

Cosima raised her head and their gaze met again.

“I won't let that happen,” Delphine swore in a fierce whisper, pulling her ever closer as if it were physically possible, as if giving her heat to breathe life into someone already half-frozen. “I will do anything, _everything_ , and I won't let you go, do you hear me?”

They still clung to one another when Scott came back – he didn't hesitate at the sight of them, postponing his work yet again by closing himself out of the lab a while more.

 

-

 

Cosima gulped. A cold air bit at her genitals as she lay there with legs spread while a woman stuck her head between them.

She had asked for someone else; this was too much, she wouldn't stand it if it were Delphine there, about to insert that freezing, angry speculum into her and begin the gynaecological examination. Of course she couldn't think of excluding Delphine altogether, so she had asked her to sit through it with her – it was Delphine's hand she squashed when the icy hard steel pushed open her inner walls.

“ _Respire_ ,” said Delphine, her lips caressing her ear. “It shouldn't take long.”

The gynaecologist began enumerating her findings as she went on, walking them through Cosima's reproductive system: cysts in expected places, other, unexpected symptoms whose development was stunted thither, overall just a marked improvement since last time now that the new treatment had been adopted. It was science, not magic, so it would take time for Cosima's body to adjust and react as it should, but things _were_ looking good.

It was perhaps hard to believe that in her position, lying there splayed like a dead animal, her intimacy exposed to a stranger. She could just see the top of the doctor's head: a blonde, just like Delphine. A bolt of shame struck her upon the realization, as her mind unwillingly replaced the present situation with flashes of a recent past, of when Delphine had been roughly in the same place as that doctor, only closer, much closer. And there she was, just a patient, a little lab rat – not a woman nearing bliss, but an invalid, sick and powerless, her afflictions all on display under cold hard light for Delphine to see, register, analyze, report on.

Not that it showed, it didn't. Delphine Cormier was quite possibly the least detached scientist there was, guilty of breaching all sorts of scientific decorum and moral boundaries, all for Cosima's sake. Just the way she held her hand during the gynaecological exam was proof enough, if any more need be furnished, of her absolute dedication, her unwavering love – and maybe all that fiery, limitless love was what tinted Cosima's cheeks red or stole them of colour; Delphine was _her monitor_ . She was her soul mate (pathetic as it sounded), yes, but her monitor nonetheless. Everything Cosima _was_ went through Delphine's hands, was witnessed by Delphine's eyes: her feelings, her thoughts, her body both as temple and as biological subject matter, her personal secrets and also those other ones embedded into each of her complex, programmed, calculated cells... She was always at the end of a microscope and yet always brightly, ardently, doubtlessly adored. How was that possible?

“ _Ça y est, mon amour_ ,” Delphine told her as soon as the doctor finished and left. “ _Viens_.”

She helped Cosima out of the chair, took her all the way back to the room where her clothes had been left, distributed butterfly kisses all over her skin before Cosima was fully dressed again.

“Did you hear that? You're doing good,” she said with sparkling eyes.

The speculum's phantom still lingered in Cosima's loins, an invisible pressure still sapping her inner body temperature. Despite her feeling of humiliation, the blaze in Delphine's eyes chased most of it away.

“I've you to thank for that.” That, and so much more.

“You're as invested in getting you well as I am, if not –”

“No, Delphine.” Cosima frowned, reaching out for her girlfriend's wrists but giving up on the idea as she felt her own hands too hot and sweaty, unworthy of touching her; instead, she stared intently, trying to show her own boundless passion as clearly as Delphine did in her irises. “I never say it. Let me do that just this once. I don't think I'd be here if it weren't for you. Of course I hate all the tests and exams and questionnaires and the pills and the injections, but they're keeping me alive. It's cheesy, but _you're_ keeping me alive. So thank you.”

She couldn't know what Delphine thought of her little speech, for Delphine said nothing. Her only answers were a small smile and a tight hug.

Catching a glimpse of their reflection in a mirror close-by, something about Cosima being in her civilian clothes and Delphine still in her lab coat made her stomach sink; all of a sudden, that tingling, frigid post-exam sensation between her legs rekindled and spread along her limbs.

Another doctor made no difference.

 

-

 

Scott was nice enough. He never stared and, having once failed miserably at small talk, had altogether forgone talking during check-ups. He'd take her temperature, measure her blood pressure, listen to her chest, palpate the necessary spots as professionally as he could. It was just as awkward and somewhat embarrassing a situation for him as it was for her.

More serious and demanding forms of examination were done by other doctors, of course. The blond gynaecologist remained and they (Delphine, probably) had arranged for the best medical crew someone could possibly wish for in the maintenance of one's health. As always, Cosima was under constant vigilance, even now that she had never been better – perhaps more so now: hope could not be allowed to go to waste. Things were as they ever were as her condition was on the rise, still probed and prodded every five minutes, still furnishing blood samples, urine, feces, the works.

But there were no loving hands to steady her through it, no attentive eyes to empower her when her body felt shrivelled and tiny under the physicians' scrutiny; no warm lips to welcome her, humanize her, little caged animal that she was. _Doctor Cormier_ only a title and a name she heard mostly in DYAD's corridors, a signature she read on papers authenticating this or that test, authorizing her own scientific investigations, validating data reports on herself and her sisters. _Doctor Delphine Cormier_ versus _324b21 (Cosima Niehaus)_ and such similar nomenclature for each of them on top of the page.

She didn't know where Delphine had been. Frankfurt, Paris, it was all the same as she was either way far from Cosima. Even now, having returned, she spent most of her time in what became her office in the newer DYAD Institute building – even now, she was an ocean away.

Nevertheless, wild oceans must be braved eventually.

“Are you still my monitor?” Cosima asked bluntly and without introduction as she barged into Delphine's office.

Delphine immediately dropped whatever file she was looking at.

“Cosima.” She wasn't startled for long. “Yes, of course.”

Cosima stared blankly forward, thinking (as she had not properly concocted a strategy before speaking), until she announced, “I want a new one.”

“What? Why?” Delphine used both her hands on her desk to raise herself from her chair.

The heating system had to be broken. Cosima had about three layers of clothing and still felt cold in there, even if Delphine wore nothing more on her upper body than a neat white, nearly see-through button-up shirt.

“A monitor's function is to, well, _monitor_ , right?” Cosima said, twisting her wrists and stretching her fingers, gazing upon Delphine's ear or chin or cheek but never her eyes. “Like, do tests and exams and stuff like you used to do, be present and keep track of what's going on with – the clones. That presupposes some sort of contact, doesn't it? Almost every monitor, if not all, have been romantically involved with each of us, as far as I know, so you're all close enough to us. But I've barely seen you these last months and, to me, that's sort of you neglecting your job and, you know, I'm concerned with my health. I need someone to be with me and keep up.”

Delphine stared at her, blinked a few times. _Well_.

“I keep up, Cosima. I know your blood count, your lung capacity, the details of your menstrual periods –”

“Yeah, but you know all that about the other girls too. You're not their monitor and you know, so it doesn't prove anything.”

“Cosima.” Delphine sighed. “There's no reason to designate you a new monitor.”

“Well, here's your reason: I want one.”

“There's no personnel available and I'm not going out looking for someone on a whim of yours. I know you, I keep tabs on you, I can do it.”

“Then _monitor me_ ,” Cosima said, coming forward and planting her own two hands on Delphine's desk, “or cut me loose.”

“I _do_ ,” Delphine replied simply, seating herself again. “I have other obligations now, as you well know, I can't hold your hand through every vaginal inspection you do. Besides,” she went on as if oblivious to the effect of the use of those particular medical words had had on Cosima, “you never really liked it when I was present or running those tests. You didn't really want me there. So what, do you miss that?”

Cosima kept quiet, merely glaring back at her slack-jawed. Delphine's next words and the shift in her facial expression would shock her more.

“Because I miss _you_ ,” she said, softly, low as a lazy summer breeze trying to bypass a window opening. “You won't believe me, but I do. I'm trapped here, I can't move. I don't like doing any of this but you asked a promise of me and I keep my word.”

They locked eyes for a second, but both looked the other way just as quickly. Silence asphyxiated the following sixty seconds before any hint of life came back to the room.

“I'm sorry,” Delphine spoke again. “I understand your concern. I will... Check up on you personally whenever I can. Would that be better?”

Cosima sucked on her teeth, shrugged, nodded. There was little else to do without a plan. Then again, she hardly ever managed to have plans where Delphine was involved.

“And are you satisfied with Scott's exams?” Her voice was devoid of colour, but if only Cosima had looked into her eyes for even the smallest of moments, she would've seen just to what extent they betrayed Delphine's actual emotions.

Another nod came, this time peppered with three loud coughs. Delphine rose again despite herself, slowly making her way around the furniture that separated them and approaching Cosima.

“Coughing again?” Her lips moved, but no actual sound seemed to come from them. “That should've stopped by now...”

Delphine had raised a hand to Cosima's cheek and now they stood close, too close, a proximity no doctor would ( _should_ ) share with any of her patients. It wouldn't be surprising if either of them could listen to one another's heartbeat at this distance – hardly a distance at all – and count each beat, make note of the rhythm, the regularity, the pressure flowing through their veins; heat radiated from their bodies, breathing patterns compatible with those indicating perhaps fear or desire or something else. But findings were inconclusive and only a more intimate inspection could provide more definitive results – so Cosima stood on her toes and leaned into Delphine.

Against her judgment, Delphine had her eyes closed on pure animal instinct. Her arm served Cosima as support, her hand enclosing Delphine's forearm, a gesture she emulated, sinking fingers into sleeves in mutual grip as Cosima's breath mingled with Delphine's, coming hot and in short intervals through her mouth, agape and expectant.

Only hot air kissed Delphine's lips, though. Cosima never completed the action, they were never brought together again. When Delphine was about to pull her in herself, Cosima turned away, let go of her completely.

No looking back. One second of hesitation later and Cosima was at the door, leaving Delphine behind with no explanations, no excuses, not a word of closure.

“ _Cosima_ ,” Delphine beckoned, her lower lip trembling.

She looked back from over her shoulder, stopped in her tracks.

“I love you.” Spoken voicelessly.

Delphine swallowed a sob, Cosima dug her nails into the palms of her hands.

“I know.”

If bodies could shatter, they would be the first to learn of it. However, there was no time to conduct an experiment as Cosima half-marched, half-leaped through the door, putting due distance between them –

but shedding the frost that had once possessed her in the absence of Delphine. She drank in the warm shadow of her breath, held holy and renewed upon Cosima's cowardly, longing lips.


End file.
